


Exchange Rate of Moral Bankruptcy

by Howlynn



Category: StartUp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Phil, Danger, Death Threats, Escape, FBI agent., Hallucinations, Head Injury, Injury, Kidnapping, Mental Instability, Mention of torture, Phil Rask - Freeform, Regret, Spoilers, Threats of Violence, head games, post season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 08:30:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10613133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlynn/pseuds/Howlynn
Summary: At the end of season one, we see Phil Rask about to be tortured.  This is what happens next.





	

This work intends no copyright infringement and all characters are the property of the series developers.  This is a writing exercise and no money is made from this work.

* * *

* * *

 

Phil Rask blinked at the woman in front of him.  The object in her hand meant they had searched him after knocking him out.

It did not matter, she had one copy, he had seven more.

Even the adrenaline fueled by the knowledge of what they were about to do to him could not clear his mind.  His head throbbed and the nausea was all he could try to control. 

They were not making him scream yet and he babbled incoherently to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible.

 

He was not completely acting.

 

  Helplessly, his stomach erupted and he did not even have time to lean forward.

 

They had no idea he had a basic knowledge of conversational Russian.

 

"Disgusting.  How hard did you hit him.  If he is concussed, he will be useless." She bent over again, her voice a parody of kindness as she switched to English, "This can be so easy, all we want to know is where you got the information."

 

Phil had gotten a clue to his immediate survival from her words.  It was not hard to act like he could not respond.  He had just made a mess of himself and that could continue.   

 

He slurred his words.  "You didn't have to kill her."

 

His captors looked confused.  "What is he saying?"

 

"Killed my beautiful...my love."

 

Rask thrashed about weakly as if fighting with someone he could not see.

 

"He must have been soft in the head to start with.  I just bumped his head.  Maybe he is faking?"

 

"Maddie?  Please...leave them alone.  Maddie...you can't.  You have to let me keep it safe.  It is amazing work, that you got it...but these are the Russian Mob you are playing with.  Give me the damned flash drive, agent Pierce." Phil looked directly at the woman and smiled as if he loved her.  "Give it to me, sweetheart.  Let the bastards come after me...I love you."

 

"His pupils are not even.  I think you hit him too hard."

 

Phil crosses one of his eyes and began to drool then did a fair impression of a grand maul seizure, complete with the releasing of his bowels and bladder.

 

It was enough.  They discussed him.  He moaned and relaxed.

 

"Find out who this Maddie is.  He has already told us enough.  For now.  We can come back..if he is giving us a goose chase"

 

"I think we should kill him."

 

"You are not paid to think.  Just leave him.  If he dies...so what.  We have the flash drive.  If he recovers...maybe he will be more lucid tomorrow.  If not...who cares.  It will be weeks before he is found here.  Leave him."

 

"What if he escapes?"

 

The woman laughed.  "Where would he go?  The charming gators would get to him or he would use the road and we would."

 

The lights went off and he was plunged into blackness.

 

 

They did not leave right away.  Phil let his breathing seem shallow and labored as if he were slowly expiring of a head injury.  He knew what that looked like after all.  He had spent his whole life acting really.  

 

He was no stranger to torture, he had been in Miami a long time.  This was not his first rodeo.  He did not mind dying really.  He had been ready for that for ages.  His daughter was all that he had to connect him to the world and she lived in such a different world from the one he did.

 

She lived in a world of kindness and pottery and calm loving beauty.  Her jungle was a much more peaceful place than his.   She is the only thing in the world that he ever did right.  Failed in every other way he possibly could.  But this one person, he had loved, truly and he had somehow managed to not screw her life up completely.  

 

At least until her mother told her what he confessed.   That was sure to come back and bite him at some point.

 

He considered what his fate would be if they left him here and he could not escape this chair.  It would take him days to die.  Maybe a quick recovery and some belligerence would be the better option.

 

 

There were the sounds of car doors and the engines of two cars starting and growing faint.  

 

He waited twenty minutes, listening for movement.  Listening for the trick.   

 

He was wired to the chair.  But the good thing about metal was that with patience, it could be made to fatigue.   He bent the wire back and forth, staring into the malevolent darkness hearing the sounds of the creatures beyond this torture shack going about their business.

 

The wire popped finally and he rested for just a moment.   He used his free hand to unbind his other hand and the wire to pick the Yale lock that held the chains on his feet.   They had taken his shoes but he found he could easily walk despite his throbbing head.

 

He searched the little building and found duct tape and a mini refrigerator  which contained Mountain Dew and bottled water.  He drank three of the sodas and wired several more together for easy carry.  The caffeine helped his head and the sugar helped clear his mind. 

 He made his way to the edge of the swamp and rinsed some of the vomit from his shirt and the shit from his trousers.  He used his soiled boxers and the duct tape to form the ugliest shoes ever conceived, but they offered some protection.   

He smiled as the first light of dawn greyed his dark world with hope.  

 

A plan was forming in his mind.  He would burn these bastards if it was the last thing he did.  Maddie could still help him.  He had more copies of the flash drive.  It was not like anyone could ask her where it came from if he blamed her getting it on Daewon, his Russian hospitality just might not be so hospitable.  

 

Maddie had been idealistic and beautiful.   She would not die as a sad little side note to an egomaniacal hacker.  Her death would be that of a hero and really, that would make what really happened fade.  Maddie Pierce would go on the wall up in DC and that was the best he could do for her.

 

For a moment, there was a whisper in his head, "Daewon was right, you know?  You could not leave me alive.  I was too determined and my little starry eyes would have never loved you enough to keep your secret.   You proved three times that you would have been soft enough to let me live.  I kept pushing you."

 

"Go away," Phil said with no real venom.

 

"Nope.  You did not want me to leave.  That is how this started.  Now I never will.  I am all yours...forever.  I will walk with you for the rest of your life...hero.  That is how it works."

 

Yes, Agent Rask was going to get some revenge from the Russian whore and from Daewon as well.   He was an FBI agent for god's sake and all he had to do was cross a little swamp to get back to the real world.

 

He let his mind wander as he walked, the tiny plan was forming into a solid and believable story.   For once he had the deep gut feel that he was going to win.   

 

He smiled at the woman walking beside him who left no footprints and she smiled back.  If he was going mad, at least his demons were easy on the eyes.   

 

  

  


End file.
